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Demo song for the project, Together at the Table, "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" ('Heartstrings,' Kristina Jacobsen, Dair Obenshain)
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Together at the Table fuses ethnography, song, and food into a touring dinner-concert series, an album, and a cookbook, restitching our shared social fabric and building community across cultural differences.
At each intimate dinner-concert, 10–12 people gather around a shared table for original songs inspired by food, place, memory, and cultural encounter. The concert is followed by a potluck meal and guided conversation, with guests invited to bring a meaningful recipe, story, song, or reflection to share. Community hosts help shape each gathering, and some co-write an original song with me based on their own memories of food and place.
The table becomes both artistic space and ethnographic fieldsite: a place to explore what stories emerge when people eat and listen together; how taste, smell, sound, and memory connect food and song; and how these everyday practices might build community across difference.
The four-year project begins in Finland, moving from Uusimaa to geographically and culturally distinct regions across the country. It then travels to Sweden, southern Italy and Sardinia, and communities along the Camino de Santiago in Spain. This movement between Europe’s north and south creates a comparative study of hosting, eating, lingering, storytelling, and making music together.
Recipes, songs, stories, interviews, and participant reflections gathered along the way will become an ethnographic cookbook pairing recipes and stories with song recordings accessed through QR codes. Other outcomes include an album of original songs, an online workbook, and collaborative research and public writing.
At its heart, Together at the Table asks: in a time of increasing social fragmentation, what might happen if we make time to sit down, eat, listen, sing, and linger together?
To host a "Together at the Table" event, email the program coordinator/artist at: [email protected].
At each intimate dinner-concert, 10–12 people gather around a shared table for original songs inspired by food, place, memory, and cultural encounter. The concert is followed by a potluck meal and guided conversation, with guests invited to bring a meaningful recipe, story, song, or reflection to share. Community hosts help shape each gathering, and some co-write an original song with me based on their own memories of food and place.
The table becomes both artistic space and ethnographic fieldsite: a place to explore what stories emerge when people eat and listen together; how taste, smell, sound, and memory connect food and song; and how these everyday practices might build community across difference.
The four-year project begins in Finland, moving from Uusimaa to geographically and culturally distinct regions across the country. It then travels to Sweden, southern Italy and Sardinia, and communities along the Camino de Santiago in Spain. This movement between Europe’s north and south creates a comparative study of hosting, eating, lingering, storytelling, and making music together.
Recipes, songs, stories, interviews, and participant reflections gathered along the way will become an ethnographic cookbook pairing recipes and stories with song recordings accessed through QR codes. Other outcomes include an album of original songs, an online workbook, and collaborative research and public writing.
At its heart, Together at the Table asks: in a time of increasing social fragmentation, what might happen if we make time to sit down, eat, listen, sing, and linger together?
To host a "Together at the Table" event, email the program coordinator/artist at: [email protected].
